Monday 24th June: It’s very humid today, no Sun so that’s great for me but, sweating and glasses steaming up hinders work 😂 On top of that my cold has now turned to sinusitis, bloody brilliant 🙄 I can’t breathe through my nose very well and that even makes eating difficult lol. Having said that I have been working (and eating) I did the morning rounds as usual and then tidied up the front flower border outside the gate, then I went into the brassica cage and weeded all of that, a trugful of weeds divided between the torts, the rabbits/guineas and the young chickens. I picked some peas which we will have with our dinner tonight, some rhubarb which I am planning to make jam with and some artichokes which I have no idea what I will do with! Artichoke is a delicacy and we are not that kind of eaters, they are also a bit of a faff if I’m honest but they make great architectural plants and if there was nothing else available I’m sure we would eat them, I must try the torts actually as they might like them. The easiest way to eat them is cut in half, remove the choke, then use garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, plus herbs if you like to coat them and roast them in the oven, they are delicious but as I said a bit of a faff even to eat them lol.
It was trying to rain when I came in at lunchtime and we have these thunderstorms supposed to arrive but as yet nothing.
I’m sorry a couple of the photos didn’t upload correctly on last weeks blog so the pic of the kittens wasn’t there, nor the greenhouse, I will see if I can fix that this week.
Update on the kittens, Benny is getting a little braver and will have a stroke now and again, Sam bought them some dreamy treats and they love them so it’s a good way to get him to come to me, however when I say love them, I mean love them, addictively 🤪 so much so that I have had to limit them and be careful when giving them as TC bit into my thumb last night because I was holding one, his needle like tooth went straight through my thumbnail, ouch, very ouch 😲
We finally got round to getting the fridge out, it’s an integral fridge so everything had to be unscrewed, we found a mouse nest at the bottom and it had chewed the lagging off the cooling pipe which had then frozen with solid lumps of ice. Unfortunately we also found a hole in the top and water leaking from it, goodness knows how it got there, anyhow we weighed everything up, the fact that it is over six years old and if we got someone to repair it, if they could, it would start to cost the same amount as a new one. The fact that it’s integral means it is quite small, goodness knows what I was thinking when I decided on it in the first place, and I have always complained that I can’t get much in it, so we decided to buy a new one, not integral but freestanding. I opted to have it taken away and recycled and to have the packaging taken away and recycled so I feel better about it slightly, but things ain’t what they used to be these days 🙄
Watered the poly tunnels and a few other bits, no sign of the storms yet.
I decided not to make rhubarb jam in the end instead I cut it and open froze it for use in the winter.
Tuesday: It’s raining this morning, it seems the thunderstorms that were predicted have abated a little, I’m glad of the rain it means I don’t have to water the garden but the temps are set to climb high this week. I say high, probably not by some countries standards but they are by ours.
Today is our 36th wedding anniversary 😲 where did all those years go.
It’s 7.30am and I am waiting for a break in the rain before I go out and do the rounds, I don’t fancy getting too wet this morning 😂
After braving it and not getting too soaked, I made some bread and a mixed crumble with the rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries, did a bit of cleaning, then got soaked when someone came to buy some ducks lol, some you win, some you lose 😜
Wednesday: Another good day for me weatherwise, overcast which means I can get out and about easily and do some stuff. Mum came over in the morning (with a bit of homemade Bakewell tart 😀) to give me a hand so we weeded the front area which looks better now 😀 I am not sure what to do about it long term, it’s a huge expense of gravel and normally I weedkiller it but I’ve been trying to avoid that, however the weeds are growing like billio 🙄 and it looks scruffy. One idea is to cast seeds from love in a mist, foxglove, poppy etc so that it’s supposed to look like that lol, what ever I decide it has to be the least amount of work possible to keep it looking ok.
Sam arrived and took me food shopping, the new fridge also arrived and I didn’t want to go before that came so that I didn’t have too much to unload when the time came but now I can fill it up 😀
After a short rest I went out and cut the lawn and the front driveway grass while John pulled up a forest of stinging nettles. The farmers are out busy cutting the hay so we know we are in for a good few days of sunshine, great for everyone, not so great for me 😂 I shall be up early (hopefully) to crack on before the temps climb too high.
Thursday: A sunny morning, feels like it’s going to be hot 🥵 I did the morning rounds, discovered John had turned on the ICB tank at the back last night, forgot to turn it off and now it’s empty! Great just what we needed 1000ltr of rain water gone and no rain forecast for a while 🙄🙄 I went for routine blood tests today and on the way back along the lane a hare ran across the road in front of us, that made my day, week, month 😀😀😀 I have a particular love for hares.
We had lamb for dinner tonight with carrots, kale and potatoes all from the garden, and then raspberries and strawberries for pudding also from the garden, delish, the taste is amazing especially the carrots, John said ‘I don’t know what they do to the carrots in the shops but they have no taste compared to these’ I take that as a compliment 😀
Friday: Another fine day, I often wonder what other countries use as an icebreaker conversation, here in the UK it’s always the weather lol, mostly ‘it’s, hot, cold, wet, horrid, today isn’t it’ but occasionally ‘it’s a beautiful day’ and today is one of those 😀
After doing the morning rounds and collecting forage for the torts I made coffee and sat and watched them to see what they prefer. For both the rabbits and the torts it’s always dandelions first, especially the flowers for the torts they love them. I gave them some borage flowers today, I had picked some along with the raspberries and strawberries which I will eat alongside each other. Borage, just in case you didn’t know is the starflower, all parts are edible but the root is not palatable, it’s contains gamma linoleic acid which is anti inflammatory and helps to build muscle rather than fat, besides that it is a beautiful plant, though it self seeds readily, and it attracts pollinating insects by the score.
I am always interested in what is edible both conventional and wild, John says that I can’t wait for an apocalypse lol, I can, I don’t want one to happen but if it does and the supermarkets run out, I want to know what we can eat 😜 and if that ever happens in our lifetime, he will be grateful too.
I am beginning to get a fair few courgettes, I can feed them to the chickens and I do make the yummy chocolate/courgette cake but as a general rule we don’t eat them, I would like to know how others use them in their cooking please 😀
The baby robins have fledged so I can now rummage around in my plant pot stash without fear of disturbing them, unless of course Mum and Dad come back for a third batch!
I was watching the ‘dead stick pile’ the other morning and the amount of birds that use it for cover is amazing, all the fledglings feel safe flying into the piles and there are obviously nests in there as well so I will definitely be using these for the wildlife. I thought I had hit upon something new but apparently they are called dead hedges and I can see how they would be totally useful in a very quick time to ‘fence’ off an area, I intend to use the idea round newly planted trees to stop the geese from stripping the bark and the hens from scratching up the disturbed soil.
I made a lemon and courgette Madeira cake, simple enough recipe and tasty enough, at least it’s a way of getting some of your 5 a day 😜 I’m not actually sure it counts to be fair but it uses up a courgette and they are coming thick and fast now.
The recipe is from thecrazykitchen.co.uk
For dinner we had roasted new potatoes and peas from the garden with steak, I roasted the potatoes and steak in the oven with olive oil, crushed garlic, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, simple but delicious 😋
Saturday: John went and did the rounds while I cleaned the boot room where the kitty’s are and then cleaned out the rabbit/guinea run and collected leaves for them and the torts. Picked a few courgettes and some raspberries and by 9.30am it’s already hot out there, I can feel my skin beginning to prickle and itch, I can see I won’t be outside for very long today. The Lupus makes it difficult to get out and get some work done on days like this because I don’t want to end up with another flare which is what will happen if I was stupid enough to work out in the Sun, the antibodies would have a field day and I would be back in a place that is not good, so although I would love to be out in it, I will hide away inside for most of the day 😏
I was able to work in the shade until about 12.30 sorting out the area around the greenhouse, by then bumps started to appear on my hands so it was time to go inside. Days like these are when I am grateful for the insulation as it’s wonderfully cool indoors 😀 we had lunch and then rested on the sofas for the afternoon waiting for it to cool down again.
The dogs are laying in the shade, they have a great life, they don’t go for walks but have free range of the place from early in the morning to late at night, Mia spends a lot of time trying to round up ducks 😂 patch doesn’t bother choosing to lay and watch 😜
Charlie and Macca invited us for a bbq in the evening, their garden is shaded by that time so it was nice and cool 😀
Sunday: I had set the alarm for 5am this morning in order to get some stuff done before it gets too hot, John got up at the same time and did the morning rounds then cleaned out the hens, I watered things that were flagging from yesterday’s heat and then picked courgettes, broad beans, raspberries and rhubarb. It was lovely and cool at that time of the morning and easy to get on with things. I potted up some peppers that I had been growing in the poly tunnel but moved to the greenhouse, even though they are late they should do ok in there and produce something. Then we went for breakfast at Shelleys, they returned home from a holiday in Italy yesterday so we went to hear all about it, sounds wonderful and they fell in love with Italy 🇮🇹
As it happens it’s about 8 degrees or more cooler than yesterday and cloudier so we probably didn’t need to get up early but it’s a great time of the day 😀
I tried the gooseberries but they need a little longer until they are sweet, I will be keeping an eye on them and the cherries as the crows strip them as fast as anything once they know they are ready.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 